Students

Spotlight on information systems

Spring is the time to celebrate the achievements of the academic year! Last month, the Department of Information Systems welcomed 141 new alumni: 65 Bachelor of Science graduates, 69 Master of Science in Information Management, four MBA/MSIM concurrent degrees,another two MBAs with specializations in information management and one Ph.D. Spring is also the time that we highlight the successes of student groups as well as individuals, and we salute colleagues who are transitioning to new lives. Here are a few highlights.

2011-06-07

Spring is the time to celebrate the achievements of the academic year! Last month, the Department of Information Systems welcomed 141 new alumni: 65 Bachelor of Science graduates, 69 Master of Science in Information Management, four MBA/MSIM concurrent degrees another two MBAs with specializations in information management and one Ph.D. Spring is also the time that we highlight the successes of student groups as well as individuals, and we salute colleagues who are transitioning to new lives. Here are a few highlights. Salesforce competition winners Been there. Done that. That's the tagline for the winning app in the Spring 2011 Salesforce competition, but now that the semester is over, all of the students in Professor Asim Roy's CIS 430 class can say they've "been there, done that" — at least when it comes to creating a new app. This was the fourth semester that Salesforce has challenged Roy's students to develop a marketable app using the company's development platform — Force.com. The company sends a representative to one of the first class meetings to talk about cloud computing, then gets students started on the process of developing an application of their own. At the end of the semester the student teams present their ideas to a panel of judges, who award cash prizes to first, second and third place winners. This spring, first prize went to "Outdoor Junky," an app that combines social networking with search to help people who have "been there, done that" in the out of doors find activities and friends. Student developers were Cassandra Townsend, Daniel Ray, Eric Oborn, and Chris Sharkey. Second prize went to Corbin Cadwell, Jeff Fenton, Robert Dydo and Musaib Ashraf for their app, called eSchoolFlow, which "takes the successful features of higher-education systems, like BlackBoard, and implements them in a simplified manner that is attractive to post-secondary educators." For third place, the judges liked the The MRKT, an online marketplace for college campuses and students developed by Glenn Holburn, Chris McMillen, Kyle Swisher, Michael Wanderi. But the judges also liked Top Rank Tech, a site that brings developers and companies together created by Tami Sargeant, Mitch Hamilton, Ryan Trompetter, Devin Hatch. Result: Third place was a tie. Roy said the judges were impressed — again — with the student apps. One judge commented: "Overall, we think that this was a very strong semester and there were several interesting and unique applications that we liked. Please pass along our compliments to the winning teams." DISC: W. P. Carey's student organization of the year! The Department of Information Systems Club wrapped up a stellar year by being named the Student Organization of the Year by the W. P. Carey School of Business. In December, the group was awarded the Distinguished Chapter Award at the ICIS convention in December, placing it among the top four in the world for MIS student organizations. DISC also was among top finalists in the international CaseIT case competition in Vancouver this February, ranking high among the 16 teams from Asia, North America, and Europe that made it to the final round. Just a few highlights from the annual report.

• DISC has grown on multiple levels firmly establishing it as largest in the W. P. Carey School.
• The introduction of "Tech Times" into DISC's professional development portfolio provided industry updates and relevant discussions.
• The BuildFusion collaboration between DISC, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, and Beta-Alpha-Psi provided labor and raised nearly $2,000 for a new home for a local family in need.
• DISC raised $1,000 for Business School Council's Phoenix Day of Service event — nearly 40 percent of total donations.

Retirements It may seem like a long way from researching e-commerce in China to a log home and bead shop in Wyoming, but Professor Jane Carey is making the trip this spring. Carey is one of two professors who retired from the Department of Information Systems this spring. In an email message from her new home just after Memorial Day, Carey reported that "it's been cold and windy but today was sunny and up to almost 70 degrees." That weather report helps explain the name of her bead shop: Firebird Beading. "Firebirds are the opposite of snowbirds," she explained. "They are looking to escape the summer heat." Carey joined the ASU faculty in 1988, and two years ago was one of several to join the department when the School of Global Management at ASU West became part of W. P. Carey. Last summer, KnowIT featured her research about the impact of web site design on the purchasing behavior of Chinese customers. She says that she's hard at work on the website for Firebird Beading. We're expecting something special, given her expertise! Robert Keim, who joined the business school faculty in 1974, is also retiring, but is not putting his projects aside just yet. For example, he'll continue to work with the Arizona Department of Education to develop a testing environment for Career and Technical Education. For three years he has been working with the Workforce Education and Development Office to design and implement a database system that manages and delivers end-of-program tests for 51 professions from accounting to web design and everything in between. This system manages the standards, measurement criteria and items in test banks that are exported to a delivery system. The delivery systems tested over 16,600 students in April and May of this year. The test responses were then ported back to the development system for statistical analysis-the output of which will be evaluated by groups of teachers in each profession for validation and development of new testing items. Also ahead: travel, golf and the wedding of his older daughter!

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